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PIGTURE^SHOW 

SIEGFRIED SASSOON 



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PICTURE-SHOW 



PICTURE-SHOW 



BY 

SIEGFRIED SASSOON 

AUTHOR OF 
"IHE OLD HUNTSMAN," "COUNTER-ATTACK," ETC. 




NEW YORK 

E. P. BUTTON y COMPANY 

68 1 FIFTH AVENUE 



Copyright, 1920, 
BY E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 



All Rights Reserved 



' • f.^^ 



FEB 17 1320 



pHnted in the Otitted States of Hmerica 

A5597-76 



^ 



TO 

JOHN MASEFIELD 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PICTURE-SHOW I 

RECONCILIATION 2 

CONCERT PARTY 3 

NIGHT ON THE CONVOY 5 

THE DUG-OUT 7 

BATTALION-RELIEE 8 

IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING STATION lO 

I STOOD WITH THE DEAD II 

MEMORIAL TABLET 12 

ATROCITIES 1$ 

TO LEONIDE MASSINE 14 

MEMORY 15 

TO A VERY WISE MAN 1 6 

EARLY CHRONOLOGY 1 8 

ELEGY 20 

MIRACLES 21 

THE GOLDSMITH 22 

DEVOTION TO DUTY 23 

ANCIENT HISTORY 24 

vii 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Sporting acquaintances 25 
what the captain said at the point-to-point 26 

cinema hero 27 

fancy dress 29 

middle-ages 30 

the portrait 3 1 

butterflies 33 

WRAITHS 34 

PHANTOM 35 

THE DARK HOUSE 36 

IDYLL 37 

PARTED 38 

LOVERS 40 

SLUMBER-SONG 4I 

THE IMPERFECT LOVER 42 

VISION 44 

TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN 45 

AFTERMATH 47 

FALLING ASLEEP 49 

PRELUDE TO AN UNWRITTEN MASTERPIECE 5 1 

LIMITATIONS 53 

EVERYONE SANG 55 



PICTURE-SHOW 



PICTURE-SHOW 

And still they come and go : anv- this is all I know — 

That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show, 

Where wild or Hstless faces flicker on their way, 

With glad or grievous hearts I'll never understand 

Because Time spins so fast, and they've no time to 

stay 
Beyond the moment's gesture of a lifted hand. 

And still, between the shadow and the blinding flame, 
The brave despair of men flings onward, ever the same 
As in those doom-lit years that wait them, and have 

been . . . 
And life is just the picture dancing on a screen. 



RECONCILIATION 

When you are standing at your hero's grave, 
Or near some homeless village where he died, 
Remember, through your heart's rekindling pride, 
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave. 

Men fought like brutes ; and hideous things were done ; 
And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind. 
But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find 
The mothers of the men who killed your son. 

November, 1918. 



CONCERT PARTY 

(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP) 

They are gathering round . . . 

Out of the twihght ; over the grey-blue sand, 

Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to the 

sound — 
The jangle and throb of a piano . . . tum-ti-tum . . . 
Drawn by a lamp, they come 

Out of the glimmering lines of their tents, over the 

shuffling sand. 

O sing us the songs, the songs of our own land, 

You warbling ladies in white. 

Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces, 

This wall of faces risen out of the night. 

These eyes that keep their memories of the places 

So long beyond their sight. 

Jaded and gay, the ladies sing; and the chap in brown 
Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale, 
3 



CONCERT PARTY 

He rattles the keys. . , . Some actor-bloke from 

town . . . 
God send you home; and then A long, long trml; 
I hear you calling me; and Dixieland. . . . 
Sing slowly . . . now the chorus . . . one by one 
We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. 
Silent, I watch the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. 
Silent, they drift away, over the glimmering sand. 

Kantara. April, 1918, 



NIGHT ON THE CONVOY 

(ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES) 

Out in the blustering darkness, on the deck 
A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of black. 
The lean Destroyers, level with our track, 
Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way 
Through backward racing seas and caverns of chill 

spray. 
One sentry by the davits, in the gloom 
Stands mute: the boat heaves onward through the 

night. 
Shrouded is every chink of cabined light : 
And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and 

boom 
And crash like guns, the ^troop-ship shudders . . . 

doom. 

Now something at my feet stirs with a sigh ; 
And slowly growing used to groping dark, 
5 



NIGHT ON THE CONVOY 

I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its length, 

Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling strength — 

Blanketed soldiers sleeping. In the stark 

Danger of life at war, they lie so still, 

All prostrate and defenceless, head by head . . . 

And I remember Arras, and that hill 

Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the dead. 

We are going home. The troopship, in a thrill 
Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls. 
We are going home . . . victims . . . three thousand 

souls. 

May, jgi8. 



THE DUG-OUT 

Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled, 
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold. 
Exhausted face ? It hurts my heart to watch you, 
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering gold; 
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder ; 
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your 

head. . . . 
You are too young to fall asleep for ever; 
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead. 

St. Venant. July, igi8. 



BATTALION-RELIEF 

'Fall in! Now get a move on.' (Curse the rain.) 
We splash away along the straggling village, 
Out to the flat rich country, green with June. . . . 
And sunset flares across wet crops and tillage, 
Blazing with splendour-patches. (Harvest soon. 
Up in the Line.) 'Perhaps the War' II he done 
'By Christmas-Day. Keep smiling then, old son' 

Here's the Canal : it's dusk ; we cross the bridge. 
'Lead on there, by platoons.' (The Line's a-glare 
With shellfire through the poplars ; distant rattle 
Of rifles and machine-guns.) 'Fritz is there! 
'Christ, ain't it lively. Sergeant? Is't a hattlef 
More rain : the lightning blinks, and thunder rumbles. 
'There's over-head artillery!' some chap grumbles. 

What's all this mob at the cross-roads? Where are 

the guides? . . . 
Xead on with number One.' And off they go. 
8 



BATTALION-RELIEF 

Three minute intervals.' (Poor blundering files, 
Sweating and blindly burdened ; who's to know 
If death will catch them in those two dark miles?) 
More rain. 'Lead on, Head-quarters.' (That's the 

lot.) 
Who's that? . . . Oh, Sergeant-Major, don't get shot! 
'And tell me, have we won this war or notf 



IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION 

Quietly they set their burden down : he tried 

To grin ; moaned ; moved his head from side to side. 



He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and 

screamed, 
*0 put my leg down, doctor, do!' (He'd got 
A bullet in his ankle ; and he'd been shot 
Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed 
So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying, 
'You must keep still, my lad.' But he was dying. 



10 



I STOOD WITH THE DEAD 

I ST(X)D with the Dead, so forsaken and still : 
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead. 
And my slow heart said, 'You must kill, you must kill : 
'Soldier, soldier, morning is red.' 

On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace, 
I stared for a while through the thin cold rain. . . . 
'O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face, 
'And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain.' 

I stood with the Dead. . . . They were dead; they 

were dead; 
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay: 
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns. 
'Fall in !' I shouted ; 'Fall in for your pay !' 



II 



MEMORIAL TABLET 

(GREAT WAR) 

Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight, 
(Under Lord Derby's Scheme). I died in hell — 
(They called it Passchendaele) . My wound was 

slight, 
And I was hobbling back ; and then a shell 
Burst slick upon the duck-boards : so I fell 
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light. 

At sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew, 

He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare ; 

For, though low down upon the list, I'm there ; 

'In proud and glorious memory' . . . that's my due. 

Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire : 

I suffered anguish that he's never guessed. 

Once I came home on leave : and then went west . . . 

What greater glory could a man desire? 



12 



ATROCITIES 

You told me, in your drunken-boasting mood, 

How once you butchered prisoners. That was good! 

I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood 

Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners should. 

How did you do them in? Come, don't be shy: 
You know I love to hear how Germans die. 
Downstairs in dug-outs. 'Kamerad!' They cry; 
Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to fly. 



And you? I know your record. You went sick 
When orders looked unwholesome : then, with trick 
And lie, you wangled home. And here you are, 
Still talking big and boozing in a bar. 



13 



TO LEONIDE MASSINE 

IN 'CLEOPATRA' 

O BEAUTY doomed and perfect for an hour, 
Leaping along the verge of death and night. 
You show me dauntless Youth that went to fight 
Four long years past, discovering pride and power. 

You die but in our dreams, who watch you fall 
Knowing that to-morrow you will dance again. 
But not to ebbing music were they slain 
Who sleep in ruined graves, beyond recall; 
Who, following phantom-glory, friend and foe, 
Into the darkness that was War must go ; 
Blind; banished from desire. 

O mortal heart 
Be still; you have drained the cup; you have played 

your part. 



14 



MEMORY 

When I was young m}^ heart and head were light, 
And I was gay and feckless as a colt 
Out in the fields, with morning in the may, 
Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom. 
O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free. 
And all the paths led on from hawthorn-time 
Across the carolling meadows into June. 

But now my heart is heavy-laden. I sit 
Burning my dreams away beside the fire : 
For death has made me wise and bitter and strong; 
And I am rich in all that I have lost. 
O starshine on the fields of long-ago, 
Bring me the darkness and the nightingale ; 
Dim wealds of vanished summer, peace of home. 
And silence; and the faces of my friends. 



15 



TO A VERY WISE MAN 



Fires in the dark you build ; tall quivering flames 
In the huge midnight forest of the unknown. 
Your soul is full of cities with dead names, 
And blind-faced, earth-bound gods of bronze and 

stone 
Whose priests and kings and lust-begotten lords 
Watch the procession of their thundering hosts, 
Or guard relentless fanes with flickering swords 
And wizardry of ghosts. 



In a strange house I woke ; heard overhead 
Hastily-thudding feet and a muffled scream . . . 
(Is death like that?) ... I quaked uncomforted, 
Striving to frame to-morrow in a dream 
Of woods and sliding pools and cloudless day. 
(You know how bees come into a twilight room 
i6 



TO A VERY WISE MAN 

From dazzling afternoon, then sail away 
Out of the curtained gloom.) 



You understand my thoughts; though, when you 

think, 
You're out beyond the boundaries of my brain. 
I'm but a bird at dawn that cries, 'chink, chink' — 
A garden-bird that warbles in the rain. 
And you're the flying-man, the speck that steers 
A careful course/ far down the verge of day, 
Half-way across the world. Above the years 
You soar ... Is death so bad? ... I wish you'd 

say. 



17 



EARLY CHRONOLOGY 

Slowly the daylight left our listening faces. 
Professor Brown, with level baritone, 
Discoursed into the dusk. 

Five thousand years 
He guided us through scientific spaces 
Of excavated History, till the lone 
Roads of research grew blurred, and in our ears 
Time was the rumoured tongues of vanished races, 
And Thought a chartless Age of Ice and Stone. 

The story ended. Then the darkened air 
Flowered as he lit his pipe ; an aureole glowed 
Enwreathed with smoke; the moment's match-light 

showed 
His rosy face, broad brow, and smooth grey hair, 
Backed by the crowded book-shelves. 

In his wake 

An archaeologist began to make 
Assumptions about aqueducts ; (he quoted 
i8 



EARLY CHRONOLOGY 

Professor Sandstorm's book;) and soon they floated 
Through desiccated forests ; mangled myths ; 
And argued easily round megaliths. 



Beyond the college garden something glinted: 
A copper moon climbed clear above the trees. 
Some Lydian coin? . . . Professor Brown agrees 
That copper coins were in that culture minted. 
But, as her whitening way aloft she took, 
I thought she had a pre-dynastic look. 



19 



ELEGY 

(TO ROBERT ROSS) 

Your dextrous wit will haunt us long 
Wounding our grief with yesterday. 
Your laughter is a broken song; 
And death has found you, kind and gay. 

We may forget those transient things 
That made your charm and our delight: 
But loyal love has deathless wings 
That rise and triumph out of night. 

So, in the days to come, your name 
Shall be as music that ascends 
When honour turns a heart from shame . . 
O heart of hearts ! . . . O friend of friends ! 



i20 



MIRACLES 

I DREAMT I saw a huge grey boat in silence steaming 
Down a canal ; it drew the dizzy landscape after ; 
The solemn world was sucked along with it — a stream- 
ing 
Land-slide of loveliness. O, but I rocked with 

laughter, 
Staring, and clinging to my tree-top. For a lake 
Of gleaming peace swept on behind. (I mustn't 

wake.) 

And then great clouds gathered and burst in spumes 

of green 
That plunged into the water ; and the sun came out 
On glittering islands thronged with orchards scarlet- 
bloomed ; 
And rosy-plumed flamingoes flashed across the 

scene . . . 
O, but the beauty of their freedom made me shout . . . 
And when I woke I w^ondered where on earth I'd been. 

21 



THE GOLDSMITH 

'This joVs the best I've done! He bent his head 
Over the golden vessel that he'd wrought. 
A bird was singing. But the craftsman's thought 
Is a forgotten language, lost and dead. 

He sigh'd and stretch'd brown arms. His friend came in 
And stood beside him in the morning sun. 
The goldwork glitter'd. . . . 'That's the best Fve done, 
'And now I've got a necklace to begin.' 

This was at Gnossos, in the isle of Crete . . . 
A girl was selling flowers along the street. 



22 



DEVOTION TO DUTY 

I WAS near the King that day. I saw him snatch 
And briskly scan the G.H.Q. dispatch. 
Thick- voiced, he read it out. (His face was grave.) 
*This officer advanced with the first wave, 
'And when our first objective had been gained, 
*( Though wounded twice), reorganized the Une: 
'The spirit of the troops was by his fine 
'Example most effectively sustained.' 

He gripped his beard ; then closed his eyes and said, 
'Bathsheba must be warned that he is dead. 
'Send for her. I will be the first to tell 
'This wife how her heroic husband fell.' 



23 



ANCIENT HISTORY 

Adam, a brown old vulture in the rain, 
Shivered below his wind-whipped olive-trees; 
Huddling sharp chin on scarred and scraggy knees, 
He moaned and mumbled to his darkening brain ; 
'He was the grandest of them all — was Cain! 
'A lion laired in the hills, that none could tire; 
'Swift as a stag; a stallion of the plain, 
'Hungry and fierce with deeds of huge desire.' 

Grimly he thought of Abel, soft and fair — 

A lover with disaster in his face. 

And scarlet blossom twisted in bright hair. 

'Afraid to fight; was murder more disgrace? . . . 

'God always hated Cain! . . . He bowed hie head- 

The gaunt wild man whose lovely sons were dead. 



24 



SPORTING ACQUAINTANCES 

I WATCHED old squatting Chimpanzee : he traced 
His painful patterns in the dirt : I saw 
Red-haired Ourang-Utang, whimsical-faced, 
Chewing a sportsman's meditative straw. 
rd met them years ago, and half -forgotten 
They'd come to grief. (But how, I'd never heard, 
Poor beggars!) Still, it seemed so rude and rotten 
To stand and gape at them with never a word. 

I ventured 'Ages since we met,' and tried 
My candid smile of friendship. No success. 
One scratched his hairy thigh, while t'other sighed 
And glanced away. I saw they liked me less 
Than when, on Epsom Downs, in cloudless weather, 
We backed The Tetrarch and got drunk together. 



25 



WHAT THE CAPTAIN SAID 

AT THE 

POINT-TO-POINT 

IVe had a good bump round ; my little horse 

Refused the brook first tim.e, 

Then jumped it prime; 

And ran out at the double, 

But of course 

There's always trouble at a double : 

And then — I don't know how 

It was — he turned it up 

At that big, hairy fence before the plough; 

And some young silly pup, 

(I don't know which), 

Near as a toucher knocked me into the ditch; 

But we finished full of running, and quite sound : 

And anyhow I've had a good bump round. 



26 



CINEMA HERO 

O, THIS is more than fiction ! It's the truth 
That somehow never happened. Pay your bob. 
And walk straight in, abandoning To-day. 
(To-day's a place outside the picture-house; 
Forget it, and the film will do the rest.) 

There's nothing fine in being as large as life: 
The splendour starts when things begin to move 
And gestures grow enormous. That's the way 
To dramatise your dreams and play the part 
As you*d have done if luck had starred your face. 

I'm *Rupert from the Mountains'! (Pass the 

stout) . . . 
Yes, I'm the Broncho Boy we watched to-night, 
That robbed a ranch and galloped down the creek. 
(Moonlight and shattering hoofs. . . . O moonlight 

of the West! 
Wind in the gum-trees, and my swerving mare 
27 



CINEMA HERO 

Beating her flickering shadow on the post.) 
Ah, I was wild in those fierce days ! You saw me 
Fix that saloon? They stared into my face 
And slowly put their hands up, while I stood 
With dancing eyes, — romantic to the world! 

Things happened afterwards . . . You know the 

story . . . 
The sheriff's daughter, bandaging my head; 
Love at first sight; the escape; and making good 

(To music by Mascagni). And at last 

Peace ; and the gradual beauty of my smile. 

But that's all finished now. One has to take 
Life as it comes. I've nothing to regret. 
For men like me, the only thing that counts 
Is the adventure. Lord, what times I've had! 

God and King Charles! And then my mistress's 

arms. . . . 
(To-morrow evening I'm a Cavalier.) 

Well, what's the news to-night about the Strike ? 



28 



FANCY DRESS 

Some Brave, awake in you to-night, 
Knocked at your heart : an eagle's flight 
Stirred in the feather on your head. 
Your wide-set Indian eyes, alight 
Above high cheek-bones smeared with red, 
Unveiled cragg'd centuries, and led 
You, the snared wraith of bygone things — 
Wild ancestries of trackless Kings — 
Out of the past. ... So men have felt 
Strange anger move them as they knelt 
Praying to gods serenely starred 
In heavens where tomahawks are barred* 



29 



MIDDLE-AGES 

I HEARD a clash, and a cry, 
And a horseman fleemg the wood. 
The moon hid in a cloud. 
Deep in shadow I stood. 

'Ugly work!' thought I, 

Holding my breath. 

'Men must he cruel and proud, 

'Jousting for death' 

With gusty glimmering shone 
The moon ; and the wind blew colder. 
A man went over the hill, 
Bent to his horse's shoulder. 

'Time for me to he gone' , . 

Darkly I fled. 

Owls in the wood were shrill, 

And the moon sank red. 

30 



THE PORTRAIT 

I WATCH you, gazing at me from the wall, 

And wonder how you'd match your dreams with mine, 

If, mastering time's illusion, I could call 

You back to share this quiet candle-shine. 

For you were young, three-hundred years ago ; 
And by your looks I guess that you were wise . . . 
Come, whisper soft, and Death will never know 
You've slipped away from those calm, painted eyes. 

Strange is your voice . . . Poor ninny, dead so long. 
And all your pride forgotten Hke your nanie. 
'One April morn I heard a blackbird's song, 
'And joy zvas in my heart like leaves aflame' 

And so you died before your songs took wing; 
While Andrew Marvell followed in your wake. 
'Love thrilled me into music . I could sing 
But for a moment, — but for beauty's sake! 
31 



THE PORTRAIT 

Who passes? There's a star-lit breeze that stirs 
The gHmmer of white Hlies in the gloom. 
Who speaks ? Death has his silent messengers : 
And there was more than silence in this room 

While you were gazing at me from the wall 

And wondering how you'd match your dreams with 

mine, 
If, mastering time's illusion, you could call 
Me back to share your vanished candle-shine. 



32 



BUTTERFLIES 

Frail travellers, deftly flickering over the flowers; 
O living flowers against the heedless blue 
Of summer days, what sends them dancing through 
This fiery-blossom'd revel of the hours? 

Theirs are the musing silences between 
The enraptured crying of shrill birds that make 
Heaven in the wood while summer dawns awake; 
And theirs the faintest winds that hush the green. 

And they are as my soul that wings its way 
Out of the starlit dimness into morn: 
And they are as my tremulous being — ^born 
To know but this, the phantom glare of day. 



33 



WRAITHS 

They know not the green leaves ; 
In whose earth-haunting dream 
Dimly the forest heaves, 
And voiceless goes the stream. 

Strangely they seek a place 

In love's night-memoried hall; 

Peering from face to face, 

Until some heart shall call 

And keep them, for a breath, 

Half -mortal . . . (Hark to the rain!) . . 

They are dead . . . (O hear how death 

Gropes on the shutter' d pane!) 



34 



PHANTOM 

The clock has stopped ; and the wind's dropped : 
A candle burns with moon-gold flame. 
Blank silence whispers at my ears, 
'Though Fve been dead these coffin' d years, 
'You'll never choke my shame! 

'Dip your quill in clotted ink: 
'Write; Fll quicken you to think 
'In my old fiery alphabet/ 
The candle-flame upon its wick 
Staggers ; the time-piece starts to tick ; 
And down the dark the wind blows wet. 



Good angels, help me to forget. 



35 



THE DARK HOUSE 

Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, 
And dark the house within. 
A door creaked: someone was early 
To watch the dawn begin. 

But he stole away like a thief 

In the chilly, star-bright air : 

Though the house was shuttered for slumber, 

He had left one wakeful there. 

Nothing moved in the garden. 

Never a bird would sing, 

Nor shake and scatter the dew from the boughs 

With shy and startled wing. 

But when that lover had passed the gate 

A quavering thrush began . . . 

'Come back ; come back !' he shrilled to the heart 

Of the passion-plighted man. 



36 



i 



IDYLL 

In the grey summer garden I shall find you 

With day-break and the morning hills behind you. 

There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings; 

And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings. 

Not from the past you'll come, but from that deep 

Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep: 

And I shall know the sense of life re-born 

From dreams into the mystery of morn 

Where gloom and brightness meet. And standing there 

Till that calm song is done, at last we'll share 

The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are 

Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn's one star. 



37 



PARTED 

Sleepless I listen to the surge and drone 

And drifting roar of the town's undertone ; 

Till through quiet falling rain I hear the bells 

Tolling and chiming their brief tune that tells 

Day's midnight end. And from the day that's over 

No flashes of delight I can recover; 

But only dreary winter streets, and faces 

Of people moving in loud clanging places: 

And I in my loneliness, longing for you . . . 

For all I did to-day, and all I'll do 
To-morrow, in this city of intense 
Arteried activities that throb and strive, 
Is but a beating down of that suspense 
Which holds me from your arms. 

I am alive 
Only that I may find you at the end 
Of these slow-striking hours I toil to spend, 

38 



PARTED 

Putting each one behind me, knowing but this — 
That all my days are turning toward your kiss ; 
That all expectancy awaits the deep 
Consoling passion of your eyes, that keep 
Their radiance for my coming, and their peace 
For when I find in you my love's release. 



39 



LOVERS 

You were glad to-night : and now you've gone away. 
Flushed in the dark, you put your dreams to bed ; 
But as you fall asleep I hear you say 
Those tired sweet drowsy words we left unsaid. 

I am alone: but in the windless night 

I listen to the gurgling rain that veils 

The gloom with peace ; and whispering of your white 

Limbs, and your mouth that stormed my throat with 

bliss, 
The rain becomes your voice, and tells me tales 
That crowd my heart with memories of your kiss. 

Sleep well : for I can follow you, to bless 
And lull your distant beauty where you roam; 
And with wild songs of hoarded loveliness 
Recall you to these arms that were your home. 



40 



SLUMBER-SONG 

Sleep ; and my song shall build about your bed 

A Paradise of dimness. You shall feel 

The folding of tired wings ; and peace will dwell 

Throned in your silence : and one hour shall hold 

Summer, and midnight, and immensity 

Lulled to forgetfulness. For, where you dream, 

The stately gloom of foliage shall embower 

Your slumbering thought with tapestries of blue. 

And there shall be no memory of the sky. 

Nor sunhght with its cruelty of swords. 

But, to your soul that sinks from deep to deep 

Through drowned and glimmering colour, Time shall 

be 
Only slow rhythmic swaying ; and your breath ; 
And roses in the darkness ; and my love. 



41 



THE IMPERFECT LOVER 

I NEVER asked you to be perfect — did I ? — 
Though often I've called you sweet, in the invasion 
Of mastering love. I never prayed that you 
Might stand, unsoiled, angelic and inhuman, 
Pointing the way toward Sainthood like a sign-post. 

Oh yes, I know the way to heaven was easy. 
We found the little kingdom of our passion 
That all can share who walk the road of lovers. 
In wild and secret happiness we stumbled; 
And gods and demons clamoured in our senses. 

But I've grown thoughtful now. And you have lost 
Your early-morning freshness of surprise 
At being so utterly mine : you've learned to fear 
The gloomy, stricken places in my soul. 
And the occasional ghosts that haunt my gaze. 
42 



THE IMPERFECT LOVER 

You made me glad ; and I can still return 

To you, the haven of my lonely pride : 

But I am sworn to murder those illusions 

That blossom from desire with desperate beauty: 

And there shall be no falsehood in our failure ; 

Since, if we loved like beasts, the thing is done^ 

And I'll not hide it, though our heaven be hell. 

You dream long liturgies of our devotion. 
Yet, in my heart, I dread our love's destruction. 
But, should you grow to hate me, I would ask 
No mercy of your mood : I'd have you stand 
And look me in the eyes, and laugh, and smite me. 

Then I should know, at least, that truth endured, 
Though love had died of wounds. And you could 

leave me 
Unvanquished in my atmosphere of devils. 



43 



VISION 

I Lo\^ all things that pass : their briefness is 
Music that fades on transient silences. 
Winds, birds, and glittering leaves that flare and fall- 
They fling delight across the world ; they call 
To rhythmic-flashing limbs that rove and race . . . 
A moment in the dawn for Youth's lit face ; 
A moment's passion, closing on the cry — 
'O Beauty, born of lovely things that die!' 



44 



TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN 

You think I cannot understand. Ah, but I do . . . 
I have been wrung with anger and compassion for you. 
I wonder if you'd loathe my pity, if you knew. 

But you shall know. I've carried in my heart too long 
This secret burden. Has not silence wrought your 

wrong — 
Brought you to dumb and wintry middle-age, with grey 
Unfruitful withering? — ^Ah, the pitiless things I 

say . . . 

What do you ask your God for, at the end of day, 
Kneeling beside your bed with bowed and hopeless 

head? 
What mercy can He give you ? — Dreams of the unborn 
Children that haunt your soul like loving words un- 
said — 
Dreams, as a song half-heard through sleep in early 

morn? 
45 



TO A CHILDLESS WOMAN 

I see you in the chapel, where you bend before 
The enhaloed calm of everlasting Motherhood 
That wounds your life ; I see you humbled to adore 
The painted miracle you've never understood. 
Tender, and bitter-sweet, and shy, I've watched you 

holding 
Another's child. O childless woman, was it then 
That, with an instant's cry, your heart, made young 

again. 
Was crucified for ever — those poor arms enfolding 
The life, the consummation that had been denied you ? 
I too have longed for children. Ah, but you must not 

weep. 
Something I have to whisper as I kneel beside you . . . 
And you must pray for me before you fall asleep. 



46 



AFTERMATH 

Have you forgotten yet? . . . 

For the world's events have rumbled on since those 

gagged days, 
Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of city- 
ways : 
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with 

thoughts that flow 
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and you're a 

man reprieved to go, 
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare. 
But the past is just the same — and War's a bloody 

game . . , 
Have you forgotten yetf . . . 

Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that 

you'll never forget. 

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector 

at Mametz — 
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled 
sandbags on parapets? 
47 



AFTERMATH 

Do you remember the rats; and the stench 
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench — 
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hope- 
less rain? 
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen 

again ?* 

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack — 
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and 

shook you then 

As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of 

your men ? 
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back 
With dying eyes and lolling heads — ^those ashen-grey 
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and 

gay? 

■Have you forgotten yet? ... 

Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that 

you'll never forget. 

March, 1919. 



48 



FALLING ASLEEP 

Voices moving about in the quiet house : 
Thud of feet and a muffled shutting of doors : 
Everyone yawning . . . only the clocks are alert. 

Out in the night there's autumn-smelling gloom 
Crowded with whispering trees, — looming of oaks 
That roared in wild wet gales : across the park 
The hollow cry of hounds like lonely bells : 
And I know that the clouds are moving across the 

moon, 
The low, red, rising moon. 

The herons call 
And wrangle by their pool ; and hooting owls 
Sail from the wood across pale stooks of wheat. 

Waiting for sleep, I drift from thoughts like these ; 
And where to-day was dream-like, build my dreams. 
Music . . , there was a bright white room below, 
49 



FALLING ASLEEP 

And someone singing a song about a soldier, — 
One hour, two hours ago; and soon the song 
Will be 'last night' : but now the beauty swings 
Across my brain, ghost of remember'd chords 
Which still can make such radiance in my dream 
That I can watch the marching of my soldiers, 
And count their faces; faces; sunlit faces. 

Falling asleep ... the herons, and the hounds . . 
September in the darkness ; and the world 
I've known; all fading past me into peace. 



50 



PRELUDE TO AN UNWRITTEN 
MASTERPIECE 

You like my bird-sung gardens : wings and flowers ; 

Calm landscapes for emotion; star-lit lawns; 

And Youth against the sun-rise . . . 'Not profound; 

'But such a haunting music in the sound: 

'Do it once more; it helps us to forget.' 

Last night I dreamt an old recurring scene — 
Some complex out of childhood; (sex, of course!) 
I can't remember how the trouble starts ; 
And then I'm running blindly in the sun 
Down the old orchard, and there's something cruel 
Chasing me ; someone roused to a grim pursuit 
Of clumsy anger . . . Crash ! I'm through the fence 
And thrusting wildly down the wood that's dense 
With woven green of safety; paths that wind 
Moss-grown from glade to glade ; and far behind, 
One thwarted yell; then silence. I've escaped. 
51 



PRELUDE TO A MASTERPIECE 

That's where it used to stop. Last night I went 
Onward until the trees were dark and huge, 
And I was lost, cut off from all return 
By swamps and birdless jungles. I'd no chance 
Of getting home for tea. I woke with shivers. 
And thought of crocodiles in crawling rivers. 

Some day I'll build (more ruggedly than Doughty) 
A dark tremendous song you'll never hear. 
My beard will be a snow-storm, drifting whiter 
On bowed, prophetic shoulders, year by year. 
And some will say, 'His work has grown so dreary.' 
Others, 'He used to be a charming writer.' 
And you, my friend, will query — 
'Why can't you cut it short, you pompous blighter ?' 



52 



LIMITATIONS 

If you could crowd them into forty lines ! 
Yes ; you can do it, once you get a start : 
All that you want is waiting in your head, 
For long-ago you've learnt it off by heart. 

Begin : your mind's the room where you must sleep, 
(Don't pause for rhymes), till twilight wakes you early. 
The window stands wide-open, as it stood 
When tree-tops loomed enchanted for a child 
Hearing the dawn's first thrushes through the wood 
Warbling (you know the words) serene and wild. 

You've said it all before : you dreamed of Death, 
A dim Apollo in the bird-voiced breeze 
That drifts across the morning veiled with showers. 
While golden weather shines among dark trees. 

You've got your limitations ; let them sing, 
And all your life will waken with a cry : 
Why should you halt when rapture's on the wing 
And you've no limit but the cloud-flocked sky ? . . . 
53 



LIMITATIONS 

But some chap shouts, 'Here, stop it; that's been 

done !' — 
As God might holloa to the rising sun, 
And then relent, because the glorying rays 
Reminded Him of glinting Eden days, 
And Adam's trustful eyes as he looks up 
From carving eagles on his beechwood cup. 

Young Adam knew his job ; he could condense 
Life to an eagle from the unknown immense . . . 
Go on, whoever you are ; your lines can be 
A whisper in the music from the weirs 
Of song that plunge and tumble toward the sea 
That is the uncharted mercy of our tears. 



I told you it was easy: words are fools 

Who follow blindly, once they get a lead. 

But thoughts are kingfishers that haunt the pools 

Of quiet; seldom-seen; and all you need 

Is just that flash of joy above your dream. 

So, when those forty platitudes are done, 

You'll hear a bird-note calling from the stream 

That wandered through your childhood ; and the sun 



54 



LIMITATIONS 

Will strike the old flaming wonder from the 

waters . . . 
And there'll be forty lines not yet begun. 



55 



EVERYONE SANG 

Everyone suddenly burst out singing ; 
And I was filled with such delight 
As prisoned birds must find in freedom. 
Winging wildly across the white 
Orchards and dark-green fields; on — on — and out of 

sight. 

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted; 
And beauty came like the setting sun : 
My heart was shaken with tears ; and horror 
Drifted away . . . O, but Everyone 
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing 

will never be done. 



56 



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